Chapter 2 #2
The group at the front fell silent at their approach, turning their heads in unison, and Lory’s heart seized as she spotted Observant Eye in the black half, his gaze vigilant rather than bored—let alone drunk—as he let them glide up and down her form.
Each limping step, each shallow breath, he noticed, the way he’d marked the details of the game the night before, and if Lory was honest with herself, the cool air of the room turned into a chill along her spine at the way his eyes turned into chips of ice as they met hers.
“Sit her down over there while we finish this one up,” a woman with a long, gray braid said, gesturing at a single marble bench growing out of the wall along the windowless side of the room, and Lory didn’t complain when her guards dropped her there and the hard marble caught her weight.
Her focus remained on the people on stage, who had gone back to their murmured conversation, while the man on his knees seemed to hold his breath.
From the opposite wall, ten narrow windows allowed in enough light to paint the room in hard, sharp lines, an elegant tree potted in a sandstone rectangle placed between each of them. Lory could have sworn they made the room smell of lemon and mint.
“The council has decided,” the gray-haired woman’s voice rose, stopping the conversation on stage at once, “that your execution will be set for tomorrow morning in the main square of the district where you committed your crime.”
A wail ripped from the man’s throat as he was hauled to his feet by a second guard Lory hadn’t noticed, where he’d been standing in an alcove at the side of the stage.
What crime did he commit? Lory wanted to ask, but her tongue stuck to her palate, and her breath came in stutters as they dragged the prisoner away, a smear of blood on the gold-streaked marble the only proof he was there.
Lory hadn’t even seen his face with his head hung low from shame or resignation.
The hollow in Lory’s stomach grew from hunger to a void of devastation.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She’d been supposed to snag a bag of coin, sleep off the mug of ale, then purchase some bread and fresh fruit in the market the next day, not end up in the royal residence, which this surely was, if the riches immortalized in the walls were anything to go by.
“Next,” Gray Braid called, and the guards heaved Lory from the bench, pulling her to the front of the room where they dropped her, pushing on her shoulders until she sank to her knees.
Like with her predecessor, a blade remained by her neck, reminding her that one wrong move would be the death of her.
“Name?” Gray Braid demanded, her piercing blue eyes peering down at her from a tan, lined face.
Her attire clearly identified her as part of the black faction, her cotton pants cut fitting at the calves up to her knees, then loose around the thighs.
A fitted black tunic tucked into the high waistband of her pants, and a pair of sturdy leather boots completed the outfit.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
The room went so quiet, Lory could hear the water trickle from the hallway, and she wiped her sweaty palms on her dirty tunic.
Her knife was gone; she’d checked that when the woman in the cell chattered away, so there was no point in hoping she’d fight her way out of there—not that she’d stand even a hint of a chance.
From down here, she could see the faces of the assembly clearly, the women and men of various ages in their clothes marking them nobility, court-relevant, and the black-dressed ones who simply appeared terrifying by the way they measured her.
“Great, you actually want to die,” a rich, velvet baritone remarked from the back of the group, smooth and slow, as if savoring the sound before releasing it.
Lory couldn’t make out the man’s face from where she was kneeling, and the sword at her neck wouldn’t allow her to shift enough to get a clear view.
“No one ever truly wants to die, Falcrest.” Observant Eye’s expression was back to bored as he threw the comment over his shoulder, revealing the face of the owner of the voice.
Lory sucked in a deep, sharp breath. There, leaning against the limestone wall behind the stage, stood the most beautiful man Lory had ever seen.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with a lithe grace that made every movement seem deliberate as he pushed away from the wall to prowl to the front of the stage where he took up a casual stance, he braced his booted feet apart just enough that he wouldn’t lose balance if anyone attacked him.
His attire was similar to Gray Braid’s, but his shirt was of finer making, and the collar stood open an inch, revealing the top of his muscled chest. Clad in midnight black, his olive skin appeared to be glowing where the sun kissed it through the windows—as it did with the two silver hilts of his weapons peeking out from behind his shoulders.
He was the kind of handsome that seemed almost unreal.
His features were strikingly symmetrical—high, chiseled cheekbones, a strong, elegant jawline, and full, well-shaped lips that curved into a smirk both devastating and elusive as he watched Lory grasp for words and find none.
Dark, artful waves danced onto his brow as he cocked his head, burnished like sunlit bronze where the daylight spilled on it like liquid metal on silk.
But the worst part was his eyes. Now that he’d come close enough to spit on her, Lory could make out a piercing, mesmerizing gray framed by thick lashes that softened the needle focus of his gaze for a moment before they assumed a glacial quality that could only mean he would be the first to volunteer when it came to ending her life.
Lory didn’t get a full breath down as she forced herself not to stare, not to acknowledge that death might come in a beautiful package, and her heart beat in her throat as she bit her tongue to hold in the millions of words that may have described the man.
She was about to die. If he were the last thing she saw, at least she’d have seen true beauty.
“Is that so?” Falcrest’s tone cut like the knife at Lory’s neck as he addressed the observant eye, who was watching him at the front of the stage.
“I’d say none of the criminals we put on the gallows are begging to die.”
The man turned his gaze to Observant Eye, a hint of mockery in his tone. “Maybe not on the gallows.”
“Name,” Gray Braid repeated, voice cutting through the cool, humid air like a flash of steel.
When she didn’t immediately respond, the guard closest to her kicked her side, and the pain from last night bloomed all over again.
“Lory—” It came out like a gasp as she fought for air, cradling her side with one hand while she braced the other on the smooth marble beneath her to keep from collapsing.
“I’m sure there’s more,” the beautiful man whom they’d called Falcrest prompted, lips curling back just a bit as he sneered down at her like the stench of her—sweat, blood, and vomit—had hit him.
Beside Lory, the guard took aim with his boot once more, and she cringed into the knee of the other one, catching herself last second before the blade he held stable could sink into her neck.
“Speak,” Gray Braid commanded, and this time, there was no room for hesitation.
“Elory Vednis.”
The assembly on stage whispered among themselves while Lory wondered if it even made a difference for them, knowing the name of the person they executed. It was when she decided it didn’t that, from the back of the group, a familiar face appeared.
Dressed in beige with lapis lazuli accents and jewelry, Top Knot stood between Observant Eye and the handsome man who shoved back rogue strands of dark hair, then crossed his arms again.
“Why did you steal the Almelyte?” Top Knot held up the bag Lory had so artfully retrieved the night before and dangled it from the broken strap.
“Alme-what?” Lory retorted, gritting her teeth against the persistent pain in her side.
Tapping the bag with his bejeweled finger, Top Knot cocked a groomed eyebrow. “The Almelyte.”
“You mean the bag?”
“He means what’s inside the bag,” Gray Braid explained, suspicion carving itself into her lined features for the first time since she’d laid eyes on Lory.
“There is a buttload of coin in there is all I know.” Lory did her best to come across like she couldn’t give a rat’s ass about it, but her voice was shaky—Guardians, her entire body was shaking as she slowly sat back on her heel, careful to stay away from the steel following her every movement.
Top Knot’s eyes flashed with ire while a mild grin seeped into Observant Eye’s expression.
Falcrest merely studied Lory, his jaw set, lips tight, as he took a casual step backward from the edge of the stage.
“Maybe we should have her publicly whipped for her impertinence,” Top Knot suggested to Gray Braid, who merely tilted her head as she examined Lory’s hunched form, and a new sort of fear settled in her chest. “Wouldn’t be the first thief to make up ignorance in hopes of subdued punishment.”
Images of people in rags tied to posts in the little squares of Dunai flashed through Lory’s mind, their screams echoing in her ears like she was there again, watching a man in beige-and-black snapping a whip at a bloodied back over and over again.
“Traitors,” some of the onlookers had said, “deserve what they get.” Or, “That’s what they get for hiding their magic.”
The gift of magic rarely occurred in Brestolya, but if it did, it had to be immediately reported.
Once or twice, Lory had watched King Ulder’s guards retrieve someone who was suspected of performing magic.
Some of them returned, their backs raw and bleeding just like those whipped in the squares.
They were usually the ones who turned out not to have magic at all.
Then there were those who disappeared in the night, mere whispers on a wind.
No one knew where they went and how they got there, but the working theory was that King Ulder had them tucked away somewhere they couldn’t spark another uprising like the one that had torn the lands apart a hundred years ago, when the fire-spitters tried to take Brestolya, and King Ulder’s forefathers saved the kingdom from burning to the ground by their fiery whims. Not that it made Lory like the current monarch any better.
She glanced up at Top Knot. “I steal to survive. I have no clue what’s inside that bag besides the gold you stuffed in after the card game; I didn’t get to open it.”
Much to her surprise, Top Knot’s face softened the tiniest bit—only to turn into a mocking grimace. “Very well, assuming you aren’t lying—”
“I am not lying.”
Lory’s interruption was requited with a punch to the side of her face, and her vision darkened at the edges. Fighting to keep her consciousness, she inhaled slow, steady breaths, the pain in her side temporarily muted by the force of the blow.
As she panted her way through yet another occurence of trapped little street rat, a new voice asked in a bright baritone, “And you’re sure it’s her?”
The question obviously wasn’t for Lory, but she couldn’t help wanting to tell the man it didn’t matter who she was when she’d obviously die any moment.
“Positive. It’s merely a coincidence we found her, but it’s definitely her.” Observant Eye’s familiar voice half faded from her grasp.
“Two years is a long time,” Gray Braid noted.
“I never forget a face.” Observant Eye again.
“She clearly has never heard of the Almelyte,” another voice pointed out.
“She’s a street rat. They steal and cheat and lie as well as your soldiers fight.
” It didn’t matter that Lory was still fighting the buzzing in her head; this had been Falcrest, and the hard, dangerous edge of his voice lingered in the marble and limestone space like a bitter aftertaste, and her stomach constricted like he’d delivered a physical blow.
A street rat. Nothing more. Her life was worth nothing to these people.
“We should toss her back out onto the streets. Hunger or the Gargoyles will take care of her soon enough.” It was the bright baritone suggesting she wasn’t even worth the effort of executing her, but Top Knot wasn’t happy with that idea.
“Even if she hadn’t known about the Almelyte, she does now. We can’t risk her snooping around, or worse, spreading word on the streets…”
“Enough,” Gray Braid’s voice cracked like a whip, and Lory cowered on the cool marble for the entirely wrong reasons.
Not a coward—she wasn’t a coward, but that voice made her embrace the idea that it was all right to be so afraid.
“Set the execution for sunset in the courtyard. Make it quick. Beheading should do.”